instant fashion week



Marg // Sara // Vicki // Nicole

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all of the light



Why do houses from Los Angeles always seem like they've emerged, fully formed, from an Ed Ruscha print? This one is the dream; pistachio-green cabinets in the kitchen, washed cedar floors in the lounge room, fresh flowers drooping over white tables in the bedroom, and books simply everywhere. I think it might be the light that makes it beautiful - all of that wonderful, sun-drenched, champagne bubble light that Los Angeles produces so well - or it might just be this house (with all those books, and all those flowers, and all that wonderful, wonderful white noise). I have a friend that wants to move to Los Angeles, and I know if she did she'd have a house like this, and I would be visiting every day if I could. The dream.

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small pleasures




One of the great joys of travel is stocking up on things you can't buy at home. You become the envy of your friends - many of whom beg you to buy things for them, too - and for a brief moment you get to live the life you envisioned for yourself in Paris/London/New York/Hong Kong with the added comfort of being in your own home, your own hometown, your own country. This used to be the domain of the designer brands and luxury items, but online shopping has changed all that. It's neither cheaper nor more convenient to buy luxury items while travelling anymore. Your needs can be just as admirably served on Net A Porter and the like. So what do we buy when overseas now? Fine wines? Bespoke perfumes? Boutique jewellery? No. Chain store goods. Delicious, delicious chain store goods. Bags of beautiful COS clothes, oversized to the last garment, the only thing you wear. & Other Stories, who tease us with an online store but no international shipping, and whose nail polishes are, quite simply, the best things ever. And, of course, Muji, Japanese purveyor of simple, quality lifestyles, where you can buy everything from paper tissues to coloured textas, cherry blossom flavoured marshmallows to bedside tables. Muji brings out the best in us all, the person who always tidies up their mess, who likes things to be just so and who understands their personal style. And part of the appeal of Muji is that their goods - yes, even those coloured textas and cherry blossom marshmallows - help you in to achieve those goals. Until next time, Muji.

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wandering wan chai


Since my last wanderings around wan chai - just over a year ago - the up-and-coming wan chai is even more up-and-coming than before, if that was even possible. New 'hang outs' have sprung up where tattooed expats with long ponytails sink beers and eat tacos, there's a froyo place on every corner and, what seems to me to be an indication of something brewing, the world's best location for a Carven store - tucked onto a dilapidated block on Moon street. There's something about this setting, with all the grit of the industrial any of the problems of those kinds of areas (hard to get to, tricky to navigate, no public transport). It really is the best of both worlds.

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Life


A quick lunch for a quick type of day. I had spent the morning running back and forth between interviews and was about to spend the afternoon running back and forth between shops. I needed something filling and I needed it fast. That's how I stumbled upon Life Deli on the corner of Ship st and Johnston Road, beloved of hungry expat locals craving a bit of organic lunchtime grub. I opted for a big mug of lentil Dahl followed up by a sinfully, well, unsinful everything-free chocolate mousse cake and didn't look back. I'm not sure if I could stomach such, well, goodness on a regular basis, but drinking that deliciously chunky soup and chowing on that deliciously rich cake and sipping a fresh young coconut (when in rome!) I started to miss my friend Belle, the OG organic devotee, terribly.

Life Deli, 50C Johnston Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong

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instant thursday sunday


Thursday Sunday is one of my favourite Australian labels. I love the aesthetic - raw, honest and completely unforced - and I love the two girls behind the brand; Mara and Iris. Ever since we first met (scoffing scrambled eggs on a grey, rainy day at Youeni Foodstore) we've had an easy and lovely rapport. I've visited them in their studio in Melbourne and I've kept in contact. When they were recently in Sydney to show their new collection we got milkshakes at Reuben Hills and talked about travel and babies. My kind of gals. 

The new collection is one of their best yet. Inspired by The Outsiders, the neatly curated range features a perfect plaid print, sandwashed silks in milky ivory and a rich navy blue, and dream sweaters, for which the girls have become renowned for. This season's offering is all about the light cotton, perfect with the sleeves rolled up on marshmallow spring evenings. There's something about Thursday Sunday clothes; they always seem to manifest themselves, fully formed, in your mind. There's no worrying about if you would wear it or where you would wear it or what you would wear it with. Simply, you would wear it. In fact, you might never take it off. That's true of all truly great labels and it's definitely true of Thursday Sunday.

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yardbird


It became evident quite early on that this restaurant was just a little bit too trendy to take my dad too. In fact, this restaurant might be a little bit too trendy for me. Door girl wearing Acne, speakers blasting Linda Lyndell and more funky frames (on waiters and diners alike) than the Bespec'd website. We took our seats and patiently awaited Suntory (dad) and Shochu cocktail (me). We had left Hong Kong and entered Japan. It-restaurants are all well and good but for me - and especially when I have a family member in tow - the food has to deliver. Think, for example, of Ms G's in Sydney, or Nanashi in Paris. Well, you can add Yardbird to that list. Interestingly, Yardbird also draws on that growing trend for blending traditional asian flavours (in their case Japanese) with modern pairings, a tongue-in-cheek menu (K.F.C translates to Korean Fried cauliflower, crispy, sticky and resolutely not like cauliflower at all and the hilarious Bloody Kim Jong Il cocktail, a blend of Vodka, Tomato Juice and Kimchi) and a sense of playfulness that comes effortlessly to the innately cool. We savoured our yakitori and enjoyed truly delicious cucumber salad with peanut oil dressing and pine nuts but the real hero dish was the crispy balls of sweet corn tempura and the rich, sinfully thick chicken egg rice, with crispy chicken skin and a whole egg cracked over the top. We cleaned up the lot with just enough room for peanut butter ice cream after. Trendy? Yes. But in a good way, in the best way, in that it looks good but tastes even better.

Yardbird, 33-35 Bridges St, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong

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buffet


The buffet breakfast is one of the defining characteristics of being on holiday, alongside Michael Chrichton books and sunglasses tan. It's one of those things that you just wouldn't do back home, the kind of decadence and extravagance that you wouldn't stand for in your everyday existence of "toast and avocado with a squeeze of lemon, please". Going back for seconds? At breakfast? Having juice and coffee and more juice and maybe more coffee? At breakfast? You just won't stand for it. Unless you're on holiday, in which case anything, quite literally, goes. The hotel I'm staying at in Hong Kong has an excellent buffet breakfast. Set up like some wonderful kitchen on a perfect morning, the food is presented in Le Creuset pots simmering away on hot plates, while bowls of produce, condiments and extras line the benchtop. A double-sided fridge is full to the brim of juice, yoghurt, bircher muesli and even alcoholic drinks, if you need it. What I love about hotels in Asia is the way you get to choose between a western and an asian breakfast. My dad has been starting his day the way he wishes he could but never gets the chance to do in Sydney; with congee. I've not quite gotten that far yet, but I think this morning I might spring for a little fish and noodle selection. Or I might just head back to the make-your-own-muesli bar. I haven't been able to tear myself away from it so far...

Hotel Indigo, 246 Queen's Road East, Wan Chai, Hong Kong

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the pawn


Humans are creatures of habit. We like routine and we like doing things according to plan, that's just the way it is. Some more so than others, but in our heart of hearts we like a bit of structure. How else do you explain visiting the same spots every time you go overseas? It has something to do with memories, sure - we had a great meal here, let's try and do it again - but it also has something to do with familiarity and comfort. And why not? The first time we went to The Pawn I was still in high school. Like most of our restaurant discoveries in Hong Kong it was borne out of a need for non-Chinese food after a week of just that. In a restored colonial building deep in the middle of wan chai we found what our hearts desire; British gastropub fare (posh fish and chips, beef wellington and pea and mint soup) in plush surrounds. Every subsequent trip to Hong Kong has featured a trip to the Pawn, and each time we go we enjoy ourselves just that little bit more, perhaps from reliving old memories and perhaps from the fact that it keeps getting better. Yesterday's lunch with my dad was case in point. The dining room was absolutely filled to the brim with flowers, we feasted on lightly seared salmon and beef cheek and finished with chocolate and cinnamon mousse. We go to the Pawn because we are creatures of habit, but we keep coming back because it's just too good.

The Pawn, 62 Johnston Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong

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the good thing



You know that saying? When you're onto a good thing... Well, this is a good thing. This might, in fact, be the best thing. I'm a self-professed sandal-wearing acolyte, a sandal-phile, if you will. This love affair goes back a long time, such a very long time. I remember the first pair of sandals I owned, candy-coloured, glitter-flecked jelly numbers (wasn't everyone's?), the perfect accompaniment for overalls and crayola-hued jimboree skivvies and that permanent state of all children that can only be described as 'sticky-fingered'. Sandals are the national footwear of Australia, and we wear them well. We graduate from those jelly sandals to comfortable, sensible Clarks numbers (often embellished with butterflies and the like). Aged 12 or thereabouts we move onto Havaianas, and those rubbery, unpretentious, completely unforced slips-of-a-thing serve us just fine thank-you-very-much until about eighteen or so when the need for proper sandals takes over. For me it was a pair of Gladiator Sandals a la Ashley Olsen (always Ashley Olsen), the perfect pair for my upcoming trip to Byron Bay. Those sandals were the thing; that summer they never left my feet, they were there for my eighteenth birthday, for high-school graduation, for the many trips to the beach, for new year's eve on a boat moored in the harbour at Rushcutter's bay drinking lukewarm Bacardi Breezers (even though my mother told me not to wear sandals on a boat, that I would cut my feet on glass, I wore them anyway with the hot, forceful defiance of 18). They only got taken off when they were literally falling apart at the seams, straps of leather flying away everytime I took a step on those hot Paddington pavements. 

The years passed and so did the sandals. The thing about them is that they don't last, especially not when you wear them with the rigour and regularity that I do (I am famous for sandals in winter, again, a la ashley). The soles wear out, the straps give way, the buckles start to bend. I am also famous for wearing sandals until they are on their very last legs, holes and all. It's awful, I know. But when you're onto a good thing you're never quite ready to give up. Thick wide red straps, criss-crossed tan numbers, navy blue suede minimalism. K.Jacques, A.P.C, Rondini... I have known them all already, known them all. I have measured out my life in the little scraps of leather that have adorned my feet, paired with midi skirts and big tee shirts (my first pair of k jacques), with bretons and cigarette pants, with shearling coats and tapered trousers. They're the permanent staple of my wardrobe, even more so than COS or Isabel, even more so than big sweaters and long skirts and cropped pants, even more so than breton tops and button down shirts. They're the ones that have been there from the start. They'll be there at the end, too. 

Not all sandals are made equal, however. There's one style that I've loved more than others. The simplicity of one toe strap, one ankle strap, first found on my beloved pair of k jacques, the collection has since been expanded to include these ones. This is the good thing, the best thing. Easy and simple, as all good things, best things are. The only full stop that I could add to my style, dressed up or down (though I rarely dress up, it's nice that in some respects these styles can cross those porous boundaries), completely and utterly chic. I was dubious the first time I bought flat, strappy sandals like these. They seemed like they would be uncomfortable and unflattering on wide feet. They looked like they might be unwieldy. They had an air of the feminine about them, when at the time what I wanted in sandals was thick-soled, thick-strapped sturdiness. How wrong I was. The minute I strapped that first pair onto my feet I knew. And isn't that what people say when they've found the one?

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p.s I'm in Hong Kong! I'm here doing some work for university, seeing family and wearing sandals. Follow my instagram (@hannahroserose) for more frequent updates x
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bits and pieces



photos doing what photos do best: slipping through the cracks. again and again and again and again.

reflective surfaces at the Christopher Esber show // Bacon and Egg roll done so well at Cornersmith // Something about the bike // Hot cross cookies for a hot cross Easter

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mak mak



On my scale - although I think that my scale is probably quite similar to others, necessarily personal though it may be - macarons sit at the absolute apex of the spectrum of awful to lovely. Nothing, nothing, nothing brightens up my day more than the perfection of a well-made macaron. They are heart-warming in the way that baked goods are heart-warming yet they have that spine-tingling, eye-brightening quality that only comes from the aesthetically pleasing. They are a taste sensation bar none, a thrill that runs the gamut of crisp, biscuit-y outer shell, the soft cake-like quality of the remainder and the ganache (the bit of the macaron that imparts most of the flavour!), sometimes airy and light, sometimes dense and rich, sometimes the sweetest thing, sometimes bitter and surprising, but every time, always time, the stuff that dreams are made of. Eating a macaron - a good macaron - is an experience. But eating a great macaron is a revelation.

It's because of the hard work that goes into them. They are fiddly and fussy, they're the haute couture of the pastry world, whose proponents are the kinds of perfectionists that you only seem to find in the world of patisserie. Listen to someone who makes macarons talk about them and you'll see that they speak in an almost scientific cadence. The temperature of the sugar syrup ("absolutely critical"), the size and shape of the rounds ("symmetry is of the utmost importance"), the flavour of the ganache. I have a friend doing patisserie in Paris and she told me she made 5000 macarons one week on a job, only to have most of them thrown out because they weren't exactly right. Rejection breeds resilience, and now all her macarons are picture and palate perfect. Sure, macarons are having a vogue at the moment, the latest in a long line of cutesy dessert products to cross over from culinary treat to mainstream zeitgeist. They're everywhere - from the sublime to the ridiculous - and they're not all made equal. But I'm an equal opportunity glutton. Just because something is trendy doesn't meant I'm not interested. After all, trends happen for a reason, right? Sometimes - not always, but sometimes - all that hype means something.

For that reason I had been wanting to try Mak Mak Macarons for a long time. Ranked number 1 on Time Out's list of Sydney's best macarons last year, they've just opened a permanent retail space in Newtown, tantalisingly close to university. I finally made it there a few weeks ago and had my world swiftly changed. Quite simply, these are the best macarons in Sydney. It's the combination of pastry perfection and exciting flavour combinations (rhubarb and rose, apricot and elderflower and blood orange and gin and tonic were some of my favourites!!) as well as the way they look. Macarons are necessarily show ponies, all bright colour and high-shine gloss but these ones took it to the next level. I've been dreaming of those rich, colour-saturated rounds ever since. On my scale, macarons are at the apex of the spectrum of awful to lovely. And these Mak Mak ones are truly, truly lovely. 

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i love mr mittens



A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of going backstage at the I Love Mr Mittens look book shoot with some lovely ladies. My number one gal Rachel Kara was on photography and Jennifer the great beauty was wearing Stephanie's lovely knitted pieces. It was a great way to spend a morning, rugged up inside while it poured (and poured, and poured) outside. You couldn't ask for better weather for a knitwear shoot, really. I took a whole heap of polaroids as well, so keep your eyes posted for them to surface once I get around to scanning them in. But for now - it's all about a scarf wrapped tight, denim overalls and blank walls.

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Alice McCall

Photos by Rachel Kara, Layout, Edit and Handwriting by Talisa Sutton, Words by Hannah-Rose Yee


When designers go the oceanic route it usually involves stripes. Stripes and subtitles like "naughty nautical". Which is why it was refreshing to see Alice McCall's collection dig a little deeper - right down to the bottom of the beautiful briny sea, actually. Referencing everything from German botanism and French jewellery, the collection featured all of the McCall signatures - embellishment, embroidery and the-sweetest-thing silhouettes - tinged with the ice-cool hand of Neptune. The show was dominated by shades of white - ivory, champagne and bone were the major players - punctuated by brief interludes of deep-sea hues, like French navy or pink coral. It was a refreshing hit of chill for summer, a cold ocean breeze, and offset McCall's usual sweetness and femininity perfectly.

Where McCall succeeded in this collection was in the rendering of the theme. The playsuit embellished with miniature pearls in a lovely off-white was a standout piece, making waves because of its simplicity, and not despite of it. We also loved the pyjama sets - printed two-pieces worn open and carefree - perfect to fling over a swimsuit when you're still a bit salty and wet. The prints, as usual, were exquisitely composed, mirror-image digital manipulations of sea urchins, coral and polyps. Cast in a delicious array of blue - periwinkle, forget-me-not, royal and sea all made their centre-stage appearances - and set again a background of those plain neutrals the effect was almost ethereal.

What we liked about Alice McCall's show last year was its overwhelming sense of fun. It's what girls really just want, right? This collection was a little different. Not so much serious per se (we don't think that this is possible for the McCall girl, with her blue-tipped eyelashes and wet hair, she was born a good-time girl and she's going to stay that way) but perhaps a little more refined. These were clothes that you might wear to a fancy dinner at Icebergs, sipping cocktails and talking business in the early hours of the evening. Granted, they would look equally as perfect in those casual, everyday situations that seem to stick in our mind (brunch, brunch, brunch!), but there was a distinct air of sophistication and elegance to this season in those softly-flounced folds and those perfect a-line cuts. It was beautiful and it was elegant and it was almost untouchable - just like the sea.

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This is our first review of Day 3! See our other reviews for Camilla and Marc, Christopher Esber, Romance Was Born, Karla Spetic, Ellery, Manning Cartell and Vanishing Elephant.
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